How School Districts Sustain Voluntary Integration: A Collective Case Study

• In Event: How Voluntary Integration Works: Contemporary Political, Policy, and Practical Considerations

Abstract

Objectives: This aim of this study is to illuminate how districts sustain voluntary integration programs over long periods of time. In particular, the study seeks to examine how plans are adapted in response to political and legal pressures, community input, and demographic changes.

Perspective/Theoretical Framework: Two theoretical lenses bear on this study: pragmatism and interest convergence. Via pragmatism, we look across these cases to see what actions are undertaken to effect change in the surrounding environment (Dewey, 1931). Such actions as forming family information centers, providing transportation, adapting seat capacity in different schools serve as representations of ideas about what integration entails and how it can be sustained. Interest convergence theory (Bell, 1980) provides a means for understanding why some aspects of the districts’ plans were or were not modified.

Methods: This paper draws on a collective case study of three urban districts in three states. The cases serve the instrumental purpose (Stake, 2000) of supporting knowledge of how districts sustain voluntary integration plans. Each district has had a voluntary integration plan in place for at least 25 years, but the districts vary regarding state and local policy, demography, and measures of student background used in setting enrollment targets.

Data Sources: Data for this study come from 12 interviews with district personnel and community group members; district demographics from federal sources; documents from the Office of Civil Rights, news articles, school district websites, local policy documents; videos of local school board meetings. Data analysis has proceeded via initial memoing following interviews, and the development of inductive codes (e.g., “leadership”, “transparency”, “curricular choice,” “community input”, “responses to legal challenges”) within and across cases.

Results: The three districts operated pragmatically, acting to sustain integrated schools when they provided outreach to all communities via family information centers, meetings in local communities, and ongoing communications about the quality and range of school choices. District staff also used data about yearly placements to adapt their plans to meet diversity goals. Yet, interest convergence also influenced program modifications. Specifically, modifications tended to avoid infringing on privileged families’ preferences, potentially compromising the districts’ overall diversity goals. For example, in White Plains, privileged parents successfully pressed to maintain a sibling legacy policy. This allowed families to enroll younger siblings in a school after their older siblings graduated, thereby restricting access to new, more diverse families.
Scholarly Significance: This paper contributes to existing scholarship on approaches used by districts to sustain voluntary integration plans. Specifically, in seeking to sustain voluntary integration, districts may take a pragmatic approach via constructive forces (e.g., providing ongoing communication, community outreach, varied high quality programs) as well as accommodative approaches aligned with interest convergence to maintain privileged parents’ allegiance, despite risk to integration goals. This research offers examples of how districts balance such competing forces, which may be useful to other districts that seek to implement or sustain voluntary integration plans.

Authors

• Peter Piazza, The Pennsylvania State University

• Erica Frankenberg, The Pennsylvania State University

• Mindy L Kornhaber, The Pennsylvania State University - University Park

• Jeremy Anderson, The Pennsylvania State University

• Tyler James Snyder, The Pennsylvania State University